When the trustees of the Medicare trust fund released their annual report in April, the Republican leaders in Congress were shocked--shocked!--to learn that the fund is projected to run out of money in 2002, just seven years from now. This reaction was odd. The trustees issue a report every year, and never before has any leading politician, Republican or Democrat, expressed so much panic. This year's report actually showed an improvement over last year's, which projected that the trust fund would go bust in 2001. Yet House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other Republicans suddenly declared with one voice that immediate steps...
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